Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (425 page)

“Very good,” said the captain, resignedly. “I never interfere with questions of sentiment. But I have a word to say on my own behalf. If my services are to be of any use to you, I can’t have my hands tied at starting. This is serious. I won’t trust my wife and Mrs. Lecount together. I’m afraid, if you’re not, and I make it a condition that, if Mrs. Wragge stops here, she keeps her room. If you think her health requires it, you can take her for a walk early in the morning, or late in the evening; but you must never trust her out with the servant, and never trust her out by herself. I put the matter plainly, it is too important to be trifled with. What do you say — yes or no?”

“I say yes,” replied Magdalen, after a moment’s consideration. “On the understanding that I am to take her out walking, as you propose.”

Captain Wragge bowed, and recovered his suavity of manner. “What are our plans?” he inquired. “Shall we start our enterprise this afternoon? Are you ready for your introduction to Mrs. Lecount and her master?”

“Quite ready.”

“Good again. We will meet them on the Parade, at their usual hour for going out — two o’clock. It is not twelve yet. I have two hours before me — just time enough to fit my wife into her new Skin. The process is absolutely necessary, to prevent her compromising us with the servant. Don’t be afraid about the results; Mrs. Wragge has had a copious selection of assumed names hammered into her head in the course of her matrimonial career. It is merely a question of hammering hard enough — nothing more. I think we have settled everything now. Is there anything I can do before two o’clock? Have you any employment for the morning?”

“No,” said Magdalen. “I shall go back to my own room, and try to rest.”

“You had a disturbed night, I am afraid?” said the captain, politely opening the door for her.

“I fell asleep once or twice,” she answered, carelessly. “I suppose my nerves are a little shaken. The bold black eyes of that man who stared so rudely at me yesterday evening seemed to be looking at me again in my dreams. If we see him to-day, and if he annoys me any more, I must trouble you to speak to him. We will meet here again at two o’clock. Don’t be hard with Mrs. Wragge; teach her what she must learn as tenderly as you can.”

With those words she left him, and went upstairs.

She lay down on her bed with a heavy sigh, and tried to sleep. It was useless. The dull weariness of herself which now possessed her was not the weariness which finds its remedy in repose. She rose again and sat by the window, looking out listlessly over the sea.

A weaker nature than hers would not have felt the shock of Frank’s desertion as she had felt it — as she was feeling it still. A weaker nature would have found refuge in indignation and comfort in tears. The passionate strength of Magdalen’s love clung desperately to the sinking wreck of its own delusion-clung, until she tore herself from it, by plain force of will. All that her native pride, her keen sense of wrong could do, was to shame her from dwelling on the thoughts which still caught their breath of life from the undying devotion of the past; which still perversely ascribed Frank’s heartless farewell to any cause but the inborn baseness of the man who had written it. The woman never lived yet who could cast a true-love out of her heart because the object of that love was unworthy of her. All she can do is to struggle against it in secret — to sink in the contest if she is weak; to win her way through it if she is strong, by a process of self-laceration which is, of all moral remedies applied to a woman’s nature, the most dangerous and the most desperate; of all moral changes, the change that is surest to mark her for life. Magdalen’s strong nature had sustained her through the struggle; and the issue of it had left her what she now was.

After sitting by the window for nearly an hour, her eyes looking mechanically at the view, her mind empty of all impressions, and conscious of no thoughts, she shook off the strange waking stupor that possessed her, and rose to prepare herself for the serious business of the day.

She went to the wardrobe and took down from the pegs two bright, delicate muslin dresses, which had been made for summer wear at Combe-Raven a year since, and which had been of too little value to be worth selling when she parted with her other possessions. After placing these dresses side by side on the bed, she looked into the wardrobe once more. It only contained one other summer dress — the plain alpaca gown which she had worn during her memorable interview with Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount. This she left in its place, resolving not to wear it — less from any dread that the housekeeper might recognise a pattern too quiet to be noticed, and too common to be remembered, than from the conviction that it was neither gay enough nor becoming enough for her purpose. After taking a plain white muslin scarf, a pair of light gray kid gloves, and a garden-hat of Tuscan straw, from the drawers of the wardrobe, she locked it, and put the key carefully in her pocket.

Instead of at once proceeding to dress herself, she sat idly looking at the two muslin gowns; careless which she wore, and yet inconsistently hesitating which to choose. “What does it matter!” she said to herself, with a reckless laugh; “I am equally worthless in my own estimation, whichever I put on.” She shuddered, as if the sound of her own laughter had startled her, and abruptly caught up the dress which lay nearest to her hand. Its colours were blue and white — the shade of blue which best suited her fair complexion. She hurriedly put on the gown, without going near her looking-glass. For the first time in her life she shrank from meeting the reflection of herself — except for a moment, when she arranged her hair under her garden-hat, leaving the glass again immediately. She drew her scarf over her shoulders and fitted on her gloves, with her back to the toilet-table. “Shall I paint?” she asked herself, feeling instinctively that she was turning pale. “The rouge is still left in my box. It can’t make my face more false than it is already.” She looked round toward the glass, and again turned away from it. “No!” she said. “I have Mrs. Lecount to face as well as her master. No paint.” After consulting her watch, she left the room and went downstairs again. It wanted ten minutes only of two o’clock.

Captain Wragge was waiting for her in the parlor — respectable, in a frock-coat, a stiff summer cravat, and a high white hat; specklessly and cheerfully rural, in a buff waistcoat, gray trousers, and gaiters to match. His collars were higher than ever, and he carried a brand-new camp-stool in his hand. Any tradesman in England who had seen him at that moment would have trusted him on the spot.

“Charming!” said the captain, paternally surveying Magdalen when she entered the room. “So fresh and cool! A little too pale, my dear, and a great deal too serious. Otherwise perfect. Try if you can smile.”

“When the time comes for smiling,” said Magdalen, bitterly, “trust my dramatic training for any change of face that may be necessary. Where is Mrs. Wragge?”

“Mrs. Wragge has learned her lesson,” replied the captain, “and is rewarded by my permission to sit at work in her own room. I sanction her new fancy for dressmaking, because it is sure to absorb all her attention, and to keep her at home. There is no fear of her finishing the Oriental Robe in a hurry, for there is no mistake in the process of making it which she is not certain to commit. She will sit incubating her gown — pardon the expression — like a hen over an addled egg. I assure you, her new whim relieves me. Nothing could be more convenient, under existing circumstances.”

He strutted away to the window, looked out, and beckoned to Magdalen to join him. “There they are!” he said, and pointed to the Parade.

Noel Vanstone slowly walked by, as she looked, dressed in a complete suit of old-fashioned nankeen. It was apparently one of the days when the state of his health was at the worst. He leaned on Mrs. Lecount’s arm, and was protected from the sun by a light umbrella which she held over him. The housekeeper — dressed to perfection, as usual, in a quiet, lavender-coloured summer gown, a black mantilla, an unassuming straw bonnet, and a crisp blue veil — escorted her invalid master with the tenderest attention; sometimes directing his notice respectfully to the various objects of the sea view; sometimes bending her head in graceful acknowledgment of the courtesy of passing strangers on the Parade, who stepped aside to let the invalid pass by. She produced a visible effect among the idlers on the beach. They looked after her with unanimous interest, and exchanged confidential nods of approval which said, as plainly as words could have expressed it, “A very domestic person! a truly superior woman!”

Captain Wragge’s party-coloured eyes followed Mrs. Lecount with a steady, distrustful attention. “Tough work for us
there
,” he whispered in Magdalen’s ear; “tougher work than you think, before we turn that woman out of her place.”

“Wait,” said Magdalen, quietly. “Wait and see.”

She walked to the door. The captain followed her without making any further remark. “I’ll wait till you’re married,” he thought to himself — ”not a moment longer, offer me what you may.”

At the house door Magdalen addressed him again.

“We will go that way,” she said, pointing southward, “then turn, and meet them as they come back.”

Captain Wragge signified his approval of the arrangement, and followed Magdalen to the garden gate. As she opened it to pass through, her attention was attracted by a lady, with a nursery-maid and two little boys behind her, loitering on the path outside the garden wall. The lady started, looked eagerly, and smiled to herself as Magdalen came out. Curiosity had got the better of Kirke’s sister, and she had come to Aldborough for the express purpose of seeing Miss Bygrave.

Something in the shape of the lady’s face, something in the expression of her dark eyes, reminded Magdalen of the merchant-captain whose uncontrolled admiration had annoyed her on the previous evening. She instantly returned the stranger’s scrutiny by a frowning, ungracious look. The lady coloured, paid the look back with interest, and slowly walked on.

“A hard, bold, bad girl,” thought Kirke’s sister. “What could Robert be thinking of to admire her? I am almost glad he is gone. I hope and trust he will never set eyes on Miss Bygrave again.”

“What boors the people are here!” said Magdalen to Captain Wragge. “That woman was even ruder than the man last night. She is like him in the face. I wonder who she is?”

“I’ll find out directly,” said the captain. “We can’t be too cautious about strangers.” He at once appealed to his friends, the boatmen. They were close at hand, and Magdalen heard the questions and answers plainly.

“How are you all this morning?” said Captain Wragge, in his easy jocular way. “And how’s the wind? Nor’-west and by west, is it? Very good. Who is that lady?”

“That’s Mrs. Strickland, sir.”

“Ay! ay! The clergyman’s wife and the captain’s sister. Where’s the captain to-day?”

“On his way to London, I should think, sir. His ship sails for China at the end of the week.”

China! As that one word passed the man’s lips, a pang of the old sorrow struck Magdalen to the heart. Stranger as he was, she began to hate the bare mention of the merchant-captain’s name. He had troubled her dreams of the past night; and now, when she was most desperately and recklessly bent on forgetting her old home-existence, he had been indirectly the cause of recalling her mind to Frank.

“Come!” she said, angrily, to her companion. “What do we care about the man or his ship? Come away.”

“By all means,” said Captain Wragge. “As long as we don’t find friends of the Bygraves, what do we care about anybody?”

They walked on southward for ten minutes or more, then turned and walked back again to meet Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount.

CHAPTER IV.

CAPTAIN WRAGGE and Magdalen retraced their steps until they were again within view of North Shingles Villa before any signs appeared of Mrs. Lecount and her master. At that point the housekeeper’s lavender-coloured dress, the umbrella, and the feeble little figure in nankeen walking under it, became visible in the distance. The captain slackened his pace immediately, and issued his directions to Magdalen for her conduct at the coming interview in these words:

“Don’t forget your smile,” he said. “In all other respects you will do. The walk has improved your complexion, and the hat becomes you. Look Mrs. Lecount steadily in the face; show no embarrassment when you speak; and if Mr. Noel Vanstone pays you pointed attention, don’t take too much notice of him while his housekeeper’s eye is on you. Mind one thing! I have been at Joyce’s Scientific Dialogues all the morning; and I am quite serious in meaning to give Mrs. Lecount the full benefit of my studies. If I can’t contrive to divert her attention from you and her master, I won’t give sixpence for our chance of success. Small-talk won’t succeed with that woman; compliments won’t succeed; jokes won’t succeed — ready-made science may recall the deceased professor, and ready-made science may do. We must establish a code of signals to let you know what I am about. Observe this camp-stool. When I shift it from my left hand to my right, I am talking Joyce. When I shift it from my right hand to my left, I am talking Wragge. In the first case, don’t interrupt me — I am leading up to my point. In the second case, say anything you like; my remarks are not of the slightest consequence. Would you like a rehearsal? Are you sure you understand? Very good — take my arm, and look happy. Steady! here they are.”